belle reve
by songs
Summary: AU. "This isn't a dream, you know." — ო korra, zuko, katara.


**disclaimer: **i own nothing.

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_belle reve_

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"I'm dreaming," Korra says, voice loud and tinny. "I _have _to be."

The boy, though, is silent. He looks at her like he is seeing something else, before his golden eyes travel back to the jasmine grasses at his feet. She is at an angle where all she sees is his ruined profile; it is red as sunset, a rippling comet that half-swallows the bone-white skin.

"Hey," she huffs, leaning in closer to his personal space. He is half a head taller than she is, with broad shoulders and pale skin- and that is all it takes for her patience to dissipate. "Are you even _listening_?"

His eyes narrow and he steps away from her. Coldly, he says, "What are you doing here?"

"_Here_?" she asks, waving open-palmed hands for emphasis. "As in, this is a _place_?" Almost instantly, her wiry arms fall back to her sides and she lets out a quiet, _"Oh_."

"What do you mean, _oh_?" Exasperation laces into his tone.

"Oh, _now _you want to talk, Jerkbender?" The name just _comes _to her, and it seems hilarious, until she hears the sharp intake of breath.

His eyes are on her in an instant, and she has to look away because there's something pleading, there, beneath the glassy, tired gold.

She sputters over her words, trying to say too many things too quickly. "Anyway...uh, yeah. I read in a book once, because, er, Tenzin is always making me read books, that you only dream of things you've seen, things from your memory. And I would've remembered seeing you!"

He turns away, thin fingers rolling like river-bends down the length of his scar before he nods. "Oh." is all he manages to say.

It feels like a slap in the face, and Korra stammers, "That's...that's not what I meant." He says nothing. "Oh, c'mon. Will you at least _talk _to me?"

He sighs, and something inside of her feels lighter. "I'm just...really bad at being good."

She smiles. "I bet you're wrong."

x

"So," Korra asks, because the eden-green clearing is drowning in the quiet. It unsettles her. "Are you a bender?"

He snorts derisively, like she has said the most stupid thing in all of the worlds.

"What?" she quips. "It's not like I know you or anything! Just trying to be friendly, here."

He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Fire." At her questioning look, he snaps. "I bend fire, okay!"

She squints at him, shifting her body so that their faces are at the same level. She doesn't speak, and he lets out a frustrated, "_What_?"

She slides back a bit sheepishly, before shrugging. "I don't really know," comes her honest reply. "I guess I'm trying to figure you out. Dream-person."

He rolls his eyes. "This isn't a dream, you know."

"I know," she murmurs. "But it feels like one."

x

"You remind me of someone," she says. She is not sure how long it has been since she has started seeing the boy. There is no time in the dream-fields.

"Hn." Monosyllabic. Typical, she thinks to herself, but she can tell his interest is piqued.

"Yup." She grins mischievously. "He's a tall, stoic firebender who would rather jump in front of a moving Satomobile than talk to me!"

He blinks at her. "Satomobile?"

She stares at him, taken aback, before quickly responding, "It's...um, a box! On wheels. People go inside of them and they take them places." She nods happily, proud of her definition.

He chuckles a bit, and she freezes. The sound is raspy and light and sad, and she knows it doesn't happen often, so she wills herself to commit it to memory. Even when she...leaves this place. Wakes up. Whatever.

The boy doesn't seem to notice her stiffened form, and she catches him murmur, "...Sounds like something that Sokka would make."

Korra snaps out of her trance in an instant, doe-eyes wide. "You knew Sokka?" She jumps up in excitement. "And Master Katara?"

The laughter stops, and the mirth crinkling in his good eye trickles away instantly. He murmurs to himself, so low and wistful she can barely hear it, "Katara..."

Korra does not ask him anything after that.

X

Korra is not an artist. But before bending practice, on a thick, foggy morning, she steals a page from one of Jinora's empty books, takes an ink-laden pen, and begins to form curves on the blank, blank white. It takes her a few minutes before she realizes she is sketching a face, with a strong jawline and cropped, raven-black hair. The sunlight is pouring through her open window by the time she has drawn in the lips and ears and nose and eyes- and the face that stares back at her rattles her, in a way she cannot put to words.

But something is off.

_This boy...he is not a Mako. He is not perfect, and his scars are not only inside of him but they spill from his pores-_

Her fingertips are ignited with fire and gently, ever-so-gently, she presses the garish flame to the paper, snatching her hand away before it can completely burn.

She then looks down at the sheet; a dark, ashen comet stains half the ink-boy's face, and it's almost like she knows him from a dream.

x

Master Katara is visiting Air Temple Island. Korra, having trained under Katara her whole life, knows this means that anything attributing to her personal life needed to be hidden away, under lock and key, because that woman was a _snooper _if there ever was-

But of course Katara finds the portrait. And of course she asks _Where did you find this_? And when Korra stammers out that she drew it from a dream, maybe, the older Watertribe woman wants to know when and how and why because this boy is (was) the Fire Lord, who was murdered before he even turned eighteen, back when Katara was a girl younger than Korra and she must have been in the Spirit World, maybe she will also find Aang and-

It is too much. Katara says she does not want to keep the picture but Korra gives it to her anyway. She feels dirty and guilty, like she has been stealing from this woman all her life. First, her husband, and now this boy (he was only a boy, after all) who obviously meant something to her. They were lost on Katara, but...

Not on her. And with that thought, the guilt resurfaces.

X

"You're not talking much."

"Hm?" Korra mumbles, like she is half-asleep. "Oh, sorry. A lot is on my mind."

_I know now. The spell is broken. I have learned and I remember- you are the king of the Fire Nation, dead and wandering like wind in the Spirit World._

He looks at her curiously, sensing there is something off. "Uh..."

"Korra," she says, and it blares in her ears. "I'm Korra. I'm the Avatar. It's nice to meet you, Fire Lord Zuko—"

He stiffens, "How—"

"Katara," is all she says. She doesn't know why she feels so hollow.

They don't speak for a long, long time. Only, there is no time in the Spirit World, Korra wonders listlessly.

"You've been waiting for her," she says, quietly. "This is place isn't where you're supposed to be. You died seventy years ago, Zuko."

He glares at her, voice sharp, "Who are you to say where I do and do not belong?"

She sighs. It is long and broken-sounding. "Goodbye."

"Yeah, I thought so-wait, _what _are you talking about?" he demands. "Where do you think you're going?"

Her eyes are on a point, far, far beyond him.

"I need to find Avatar Aang," she replies. She laughs, only it doesn't feel like anything. "He isn't here."

"K-"

"Korra," she says again. "I'm not her. So please stop."

Zuko looks like she's carved him out; his lips are unable to work around the words. "I never said you were. I never _thought _you were." He runs a hand through his hair, and something in his eyes makes him look a hundred years old. Which, Korra realizes, he probably is. Not a dream-boy at all, but perhaps a ghost, perhaps the spirit of someone who is too wise and old to still be so young.

Korra smiles thinly at him. "She hasn't forgotten you. She'll come, don't worry." She is walking away disappearing into the spirit-light. "I'll leave you alone."

"Korra—" He is stepping towards her, trying to catch her, but she is iridescent. She is not tangible. She is leaving this part of the Spirit World she had intruded on.

"Bye." She smiles, and then the viridian-green is swiped away into an ocean of black.

He is gone.


End file.
